5/17/11

The Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature "honors books for younger readers (from “Young Adults” to picture books for beginning readers), in the tradition of The Hobbit or The Chronicles of Narnia."

Here's this year's shortlist:

Catherine Fisher, Incarceron and Sapphique (Dial)

Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight (HarperCollins)

Polly Shulman, The Grimm Legacy (Putnam Juvenile)

Heather Tomlinson, Toads and Diamonds (Henry Holt)

Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen’s Thief series, consisting of The Thief, The Queen of Attolia, The King of Attolia, and A Conspiracy of Kings (Greenwillow Books)

A truly interesting list of very different books (both from each other and from other award lists I've seen), and none of them brought either The Hobbit or Narnia to mind when I read them! If I were to recommend one of these to someone, it's unlikely I'd recommend a second one to the same person. The closest I get is Catherine Fisher and Megan Whalen Turner.

But, of course, to me (MWT fan that I am) there's an obvious winner....

And just because we all need more books on our to be read lists, here are the books in contention for the Adult Award:

Guy Gavriel Kay, Under Heaven (Roc)

Karen Lord, Redemption in Indigo (Small Beer Press)

Patricia A. McKillip, The Bards of Bone Plain (Ace)

Devon Monk, A Cup of Normal (Fairwood Press)

Sharon Shinn, Troubled Waters (Ace)

None of which I've read, and all of which I now want to! (I actually have the McKillip, and have been meaning to read it for ages sigh sigh)